STC UUX Community Newsletter
Usability Interface

Community News and Events - May 2005

Usability Interface Earns Excellence Award

• “This newsletter is brimming with useful and varied information for its audience, which can be difficult to manage in a newsletter format.”
• “This newsletter offers a great selection of new and reprinted articles, artwork is included where appropriate, and article continuations are easy to follow and accurate.”
• “Overall navigation through the newsletter is logical and organized.”
• “For overall page design, the pages effectively use white space and graphic elements to guide the reader through the articles.”

Please join me in congratulating David and the rest of the editorial team for this recognition of their accomplishment. Thank you also to all the authors who have contributed informative and useful articles throughout the year.

5th International Conference on Plain Language
Washington, DC, November 3 - 6, 2005

Meet other practitioners in business and government from all over the world who work on communicating workplace information in clear language.  Find out more at www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/conferences/

The conference is sponsored by The Plain Language Association International (acronym PLAIN) and is hosted by the U S Plain Language Action and Information Network (also acronym PLAIN; http://plainlanguage.gov/) and the new Center for Plain Language (a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of plain language).

News from Usability NJ

By Alice Preston

On April 27, UsabilityNJ hosted a talk on ‘Agile Development and the Role of Usability’ by Susan Pearsall and Gwen Pearson. Both Susan Pearsall, Ph.D., and Gwen Pearson, Ph.D., have extensive experience working in teams employing the Agile development techniques at AT&T. They shared their experiences on how usability professionals could be a part of Agile development teams and help enhance the user experience of the product.

Many corporations are faced with deep technology cost cuts, intense pressure to deliver quality products in shorter time frame, and changing priorities imposed by regulators and auditors. Agile development techniques are better suited to meet these present day challenges faced by corporation.

Some of the characteristics of Agile development techniques include shorter project schedules, incremental delivery of complex solutions, enhanced communication between customers and developers, and relatively quick responses to changes in requirements. In simple terms, Agile development refers to processes and tools used by software teams to develop products in a short time frame with close collaboration between the team and its customers.

At first thought it almost seems like the role of a usability professional in this type of a software development environment is quite limited. Upon examining the various principles of Agile development, it becomes evident that there is a distinct value added by the presence of usability professionals in these teams.

The first and foremost principle of Agile development is to satisfy the customer. Usability professionals could help here by using standard templates while interviewing customers. This would ensure that the requirements gathering process is consistent and meaningful. At the same time, the entire team could benefit by understanding the underlying user goals.

During these meetings, in addition to templates, quick paper pencil prototypes and PowerPoint mock-ups will help in bringing the entire team on the same page. Creating style sheets will also help the team achieve some basic user interface (UI) standards. As the software development progresses, the usability professionals in the team could conduct heuristic evaluations and convey any changes to the developers immediately. When there are changes to requirements, the usability professionals can act as liaisons during the meetings to ensure that the changes are within the scope of the project and help determine the feasibility of implementing the changes.

After the completion of a project, usability professionals in the team could discuss the UI lessons learnt and identify opportunities for improvement. This would also create UI awareness within the team which would be beneficial in future projects.

As more and more organizations embrace these Agile development techniques, it becomes imperative for usability professionals to work within these development teams. This not only helps focus the attention of the team towards optimal user experience but also helps the usability professionals to understand and respect developer constraints as the entire team is working together towards the successful completion of a project.

• www.foruse.com/presentations/sd2001.htm
• technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?stream_id=470
• www.agilealliance.com/home